BS Productions has released another DVD, The Players. This productions offer a glimpse into what makes some of today’s strongers climbers tick. Climbers you will see include: Chris Lindner, Lisa Rands, Chris Sharma, Dave Graham, Alex Puccio, Emily Harrington, Ethan Pringle, Joe Kinder and Daniel Woods.

In his/her section, each climber speaks candidly about climbing motivations and personal climbing goals. For example, Alex Puccio speaks about the competition between female climbers and the need to continually raise the bar, and Daniel Woods shares his desire to increase the popularity and awareness of climbing. Dave Graham talks about…well it’s hard to say what exactly he was really talking about. Either way, it was interesting to see those various aspects of everyone’s personalities.

The video did not hurt for interesting footage. Shots of Chris Lindner deep water soloing in Vietnam, for example, were impressive as were the shots from South Africa. Climbing destinations were diverse and the camera work was good. Somewhat distracting, however, were the filler shots between climbs. While some were interesting, a number seemed to function only to fill time. Overall, however, the movie kept a good pace and was enjoyable to watch.

Trailer for The Players

If you enjoy seeing some of the best climbers the U.S. has to offer climbing hard in a variety of disciplines, The Players is something you will definitely enjoy. Check it out and let me know what you think!

30 Responses to The Players DVD Review

I agree that The Players had a lot of good camera work showcasing excellent climbers on excellent rock, but I have to disagree with the pace. Barely a split second would elapse between some of the problems, and there was hardly a transition between each climber’s segment of the film. I thought that made the film seem incredibly cramped and rushed.

I felt like the film was in a hurry to cram in some problems/routes, give the climbers a chance to say a few words, and get out. Besides the very obvious direction of telling the viewer what “a player” is, I felt like the film lacked the strong storytelling feel that I really enjoy in many climbing films.

The filler shots annoyed me too, particularly because using the space in between the climbing can be so effective at portraying a climbing area and the climbing personalities that are there. I hate seeing Dave talking in an oddly lit room about the problems that have made the final cut, rather than hearing his amusing and insightful stream-of-consciousness at the crag that we often get in Big Up films.

I also think using some footage (and not just clips, but entire climbs) that many people had seen already on Momentum diminished the freshness…

For sure a quality climbing flick, and definitely a good glimpse at a current collection of many top American climbers (but where was P Rob?), but not as strong of a film as I had hoped.

I would have to agree with you about the transitions between segments being much too abrupt. I’m not often that enraptured by the storytelling of other climbing movies so the quick pace elsewhere didn’t bother me as much.

I actually found the non-climbing DG clips in this movie as humorous as the clips in Dosage V but I think that is a matter of personal preference.

Yep. Thats just Dave. Its so funny, but sometimes I just watch him climb and talk just to have to not think, but I know he’s really not thinking a lot of that time either. And yet, the more I listen, the more I understand without having to think… and it scares me.

Im in the middle of a hangboard work-out so I’ll try to make this as short as possible…
Frankly, seeing other Brian Solano films such as: Spray and The Life and Im not impressed. I have seen both of the mentioned films multiple times when hang around in home gyms and couple other places. The filming is not complex and sometimes seems sort of lazy. There appears to be no effort put into the complex rigging needed most of the time to achieve the best shot. along with the lack of tenacity for excellent cinematography the editing is also not up to par. The editing consist of horribly framed shots strung together depicting a cool climb in a bad way. Its not that the film making is absolutely terrible, it gets the job done, but thats the terrible it just gets the job done…
Other production companies spend countless hours, extreme planning, and equally extreme rigging to achieve the memorable shots that get us really psyched to go out and push ourselves hard and one production company that comes to mind is BIGUP. When these guys set out to film a new movie they dont just half ass it, they create art and they do this with precise rigging of booms and careful since of composition and they don’t just stop there the editing of those well composed shots is also well thought out. One example of careful editing is the scenes of Paul robinson doing “further in to the forest” in N.E. section of Dosage 5. the fluid editing shows the problem chronlogically and displays many different angles that mesh perfectly together, unlike the shots that are BS…(productions)
So what im really getting to is that BS needs to lower there prices or step up the filming to something worth 30 dollars…because BIGUP as set the bar for the 30 dollar movie and BS has a along way to go before any of there films are actually worth 30 dollars…im better of saving the movie and renewing by gym membership or buying 2 high quality Big budget studio films that were just released

David
ps.
Anyone got Players or Pure and can upload them on Demonoid or some torrent site…

Zack’s comments were pretty on point. I fast forwarded through some footage that was previously on MVM. I enjoy watching full route ascents (I had recently watched Uncommon Grounds) but the ‘playaz’ soundtrack throughout the movie didn’t do much for me. Some sections were significantly longer than others. I wish Emily Harrington had a slightly longer part. It was nice to footage of Alex Puccio outside of competitions. Overall, a decent movie… but I think I’ve been spoiled by the truly stellar film quality of movies like Dosage V.

The fact that some of the footage in The Players already appeared on MVM is an interesting critique and not one that I necessarily disagree with. Back in the early days of the Dosage series often times much of the footage in the movies had already appeared on ClimbXMedia. Perhaps times have changed?

1. BigUp has been making movies longer than BS Productions… that means more experience
2. BigUp didn’t get that great of shots either…at least not early on. They were just able to roll around with Chris Sharma…so no one cared. It wasn’t until they hooked up with Sender Films that they learned some new tricks and REALLY stepped up their production value.
3. Like Narc mentioned… early Dosage films would also regurgitate footage that they had already used. Now they are popular enough that they don’t have to give footage out to sites like MVM… BS Productions just isn’t at that point YET…
4. This latest film is an improvement over past BS Production films… they are making progress!
5. And as far as putting videos on a torrent site… it is those kind actions that make it hard for a production company like BS to progress. By putting a climbing video on a torrent site, you would be taking part in the murder of climbing media. Support climbing media and it will grow!

BS PRODUCTIONS sad attempt to scrap together money by filming horribly composed shots do to lack of effort is enough for there business to fail…every business has a model that it functions around.
Take GM…there business was drowning because of there business plan and the types of cars they manufactured. Just because they are a “big” part of economic stability doesnt mean bail-outs…
so BS should also fail because of there horrible film to price ratio being to high and people should honestly stop buying the films until they lower prices on new releases…once they have caught up with other production companies who set the bar and sell there high quality videos for 30 dollars then BS can continue to do the same…
Its wrong for them to sell a lower quality product for the same price as the higher of quality and for people to support that is even worse…
I will gladly pay full price for BIGUPS new progression film…but to pay the same for BS is ignorant…

Seriously, ‘wow’ kind of sums that up. I have see BS’s films and have personally enjoyed them. I also know that BS puts a lot of work into what he does and in no way tries to put something out there that isnt good. Unfortunately you didnt like the way he does his movies (mostly @ david). It should also be noted that ‘the life’ isn’t shot by BS. It was compiled by BS from old home videos he got from other people. I for one liked ‘the life’ even with the cracked camera lense and shitty footage because I enjoyed seeing some classic climbs being done in the earlier days (reletively speaking obviously).

Your attitude of let me just download shit and probably burn it for your friends is exactly why the movies have to be so expensive in the first place. Not only do people not like purchasing media in our day and age (i.e. dvd’s and cd’s) but the climbers market itself is historically cheap and also quite small. Therefore they have to jack the prices up to try to break even.

You are talking as if BS is rapping people to try to get rich on these flicks and I believe it to be quite the opposite. I would argue that not only BS productions but other up and coming climbing video companies are just trying not to loose their ass and essensially are just trying to do something they are passionate about without loosing their asses. I for one applaud this maintality because it gives me shit to watch and be psyched about.

Just my thoughts and fortunately my long windedness isnt getting in the way of my hangboard workout because I’m not doing one… that was one odd pyrimid you must have been doing the other night David. Is it hard to workout with the constant hard on that you get thinking about Big Up?

lots of love to all (including David 🙂 ),
John Freaney
Avid supporter of “all” climbing media

…………………….
@david
re: there vs their (also they’re).
Please do a little research, and sort out your homonyms mang… If your argument is a race car that you drive around to pick up chicks or dudes or whatever floats your boat, having these successive “wrong word fails” is like driving around with a large human turd on the hood of said car. No shorties be steppin’ to yo ride playa.
Sorry about the personal pet peeve moment all, please get back on topic now. Peace.
…………………….

@OBdizzy
Sorrey bout the grammatical errers…Its summer tyme, its mi brake from schoole an I diserve teh choyse too use the wrong homos ife eye sew desier…sew chill oute an go c a psycologiest so hee can help u take care of that problem

peice out form the deans list MOFOS ITS SUMER TYME LET THE GRAMMAR FLY OUT TEH DOORE!!!!

Me downloading the video off a torrent is just my way of making sure I get a quality video.

Why should I waste my hard earned dollar on something I don’t feel is worth $30 something? I’ll download it, and if I like it, then I’ll go a buy it. If I don’t like it, I’ll delete it. I’m not going to let a shit movie take up gigs. So far, what I’ve seen is shitty, but maybe the previews don’t show some scenes I’d really like.

I kinda thought the preview was pretty good. Not sure $30 good, but good. Perhaps my standards are low. Can’t be any worse than Inertia. Now that one sucked. I do question the name– if a climber is a true “player” as stated and defined in the beginning of the clip, then they certainly would not be in any videos or publicity hounds. I personally do not think this many climbing movie companies can possibly survive. You watch a vid once, maybe twice? They’re kinda all the same, so why would you need more than a couple unless it featured a local area or something. What climbers can afford every new climbing movie that comes out? None, I would guess. Whatever. ce

Oh yeah, another less controversial way to preview movies would be to rent them. Netflix actually has a fair number of climbing vids, but they are not organized in any kind of coherant manner. If you go to Sports and then to mountain climbing, some of them come up, but a better way is just to search for “chris sharma” or “dave graham” or whoever you worship. I assume the producers get some money then and it’s not $30. ce

I would totally buy this if they would put a download-able version up on their site, like how Big-Up did for Progression. Companies need to adapt to change rather then fight it. Just look at all the money lost by the record industry by their unwillingness to just supply cheap convenient downloads of their music. If they had started off by adapting, instead of suing people for downloading music, they wouldn’t have a problem. People are willing to pay money to have a high quality copy that was convenient to get. As it is right now though, it’s easier to get the torrent rather then pay the $30 to wait a week or more for their DVD to arrive…